The Hindu (Thiruvananthapuram)
Camera ready
Over the years, Rai has transitioned from using Nikon camera systems to the Fuji GFX, which is almost always hung around his neck. “Digital technology is so amazing; it gives me greater control and superior quality to photograph any situation, day or night,” he says. Most images are now captured in colour, in RAW format, and converted to black-and-white if the situation demands it.
At no given time am I without a camera,” asserts Raghu Rai, one of India’s most important photographers, who is the subject of a major exhibition at the Kiran Nadar Museum of Art in New Delhi. Now 81, Rai has been taking pictures for over half a century — since he was 23, when his elder brother introduced him to the camera, eventually making a name for himself as a distinguished photojournalist and editor who travelled the length and breadth of India to capture its essence.
“I was never just a photographer on assignment. When I was working with The Statesman and later India Today, I was sent to shoot specic stories, but I would document the entire journey and take my camera out on the plane, on the train, sitting in a taxi, or even a bullock cart, photographing the people, landscape and life,” he shares. It is this journey spanning the formative years of Rai’s career, from 1965 to 2005, that is reected in over 250 striking black-and-white images on display.
Named A Thousand Lives, the exhibition pays homage to India and the passionate journey of a photographer. The country is seen in its many faces, in moments of peace and protest, the spiritual and the mundane, glorious landscapes juxtaposed with the stark extremes of wealth, power and poverty.
Portraits of gures such as Indira Gandhi and her political adversary Jayaprakash Narayan, or JP as he was known — in two adjacent rooms — capture their fragility. They reveal the vulnerability behind Gandhi’s stern facade, whether she is waving goodbye to her grandchildren as she departs from the Prime Minister’s residence, or in moments of solitary contemplation before
M(Clockwise from above) Mother Teresa in prayer at Nirmal Hriday, Calcutta, 1986; Indira Gandhi at home in Delhi with daughter-in-law Sonia Gandhi and grandchildren Priyanka and Rahul, 1972; the Dalai Lama watching in Dharamsala, 1988; series (1973-1977); wrestlers at an Delhi, 1988; and photographer Raghu Rai.
addressing a large political rally. JP is depicted upholding the conscience of the country, both alone and amidst a crowd.
Beyond the political realm, Rai’s photojournalism led him to spiritual leaders such as the Dalai Lama and Mother Teresa — experiences that profoundly impacted and inuenced his way of seeing. The Dalai Lama is portrayed enjoying a meal or playing with a cat in Dharamshala, while photographs of Mother Teresa show the dedication inherent in a life of service. any years ago, when I was in school, I had a teacher who found it very di cult to be kind to me. We had just started the new academic year and it was our second or third mathematics class with him. In the rst couple of classes, he asked students to come up and solve problems on the blackboard. Now, I wasn’t especially terrible at maths, but the prospect of getting up in front of an entire class put me in panic mode. Let’s just say I always knew that I could not be a politician.
When it was my turn to go to the front of the classroom, I could not concentrate on the question and muddled the whole thing up. He looked at me and said, ‘It is a good thing you have a pleasant looking face because here
[pointing to his head] it is all empty.’ Everyone laughed, including me. For the next couple of months, even when I worked up the courage to answer a question and put my hand up, he would point to his head and mouth ‘empty’, and pick someone else to answer. I know I messed up the rst time, but I didn’t understand the need for this constant mocking.
Soon, December arrived and with it our winter holidays. I was packed o to Phuphee’s house for a few months. On the day I arrived it started snowing — a little dusting at rst, followed by a pause of a few hours and then, a gentle, continuous snowfall that carried
Capturing the ordinary
This spirit of service inuenced Rai during his early encounters with Mother Teresa. “I was very frustrated with the state of the media. Most stories were being done from Delhi, and covering Indian politics was becoming monotonous. I wanted to photograph the ordinary people, who are the true soul of this country,” says Rai, who ventured deep into villages and urban centres as far as Kanyakumari, Kolkata, Jaipur, Varanasi, Ladakh and Srinagar –– capturing the extraordinary within thousands of ordinary Indian lives.
Beggars, theatre artists, shop owners, tailors, freight carriers, taxi drivers, soldiers, devotees, street gamblers, slum dwellers, school-going kids, nuns, and transwomen, all nd a place of dignity in his photographs. Animals too roam freely — dogs, horses, monkeys, goats, parrots, and pigeons — in harmony with their street surroundings familiar to every Indian.
Despite the vibrant colours of the country, his